Australia Visa Applications Rising Whilst Government Cuts Back Staff
22/05/2008 by Thabang Motsei
With Australia currently experiencing an increase in immigration with large numbers of people applying for visas, news of the government cutting official immigration jobs has caused alarm.
Recent reports show that the Immigration Department has slashed one-in-ten overseas postings. All of these positions relate to roles where people are assessing skilled workers' visas. The Irony of this comes after months of campaigning by the Australian government in order to entice skilled migrants and ease the country's current skills shortages.
The announcement of these cuts has caused huge confusion as it follows the recent cap raise of skilled migrants by an astonishing 31,000 to 133,500 places. The next financial year is expected to see numbers of the 457 temporary visas for skilled workers exceed 100,000 for the first time.
In particularly the number of Britons living in Australia has doubled in the past decade, with reports suggesting that it is the second most popular destination for the English to reside in. In general it is estimated that about 2,000 people choose to migrate to Australia every week.
Talking about the news, Erin Ryan of the Australian www.globalvisas.com division says "With more people opting to migrate to Australia and Australia encouraging this strong growth, I think there will be concern, especially to ensure that they do not find themselves in a similar situation to Canada, whom are facing a visa backlog."
The Department for Immigration and Citizenship announced that the job cuts will fall from 160 to 144. This is line with cuts also being faced by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as the Transport Department, which has slashed the number of its security liaison officers in large foreign cities.
It is thought that the job cuts are related to of recent notifications that the Immigration Department recently received an additional $47 million in the budget towards its $500million computer program.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans addressed those concerned about the processing of visas; he said "The bulk of working visa assessments is done by computer in the department's Adelaide headquarters. I believe that the job losses at overseas posts will not affect the efficiency of the checking of working visas."
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